One of the abused prisoners, Dhia al-Shweiri, has been widely quoted from an Associated Press story as saying that he was more humiliated by the sexual abuse than the physical pain. "We are men. It's OK if they beat me," al-Shweiri said. "Beatings don't hurt us; it's just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered. They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman." (Bush's apology on Thursday for the abuse hasn't been accepted by Iraqis, either; on Friday afternoon, the AP reported that an aide of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, encouraged Iraqis to capture British soldiers in retaliation for the abuse -- and keep the female ones for slaves.)
Stephanie Guttman, the neoconservative author of "A Kinder, Gentler Military," believes that Islamic male prejudices may have even affected the female troops' degrading treatment of the prisoners: "Women can act just as badly as men. I think they have been aware of the Islamic attitude about women -- which is not respectful. They may have subtly enjoyed being sadistic to the kind of men who enjoy humiliating other women."
Enloe disagrees: "I don't think this is especially humiliating for Arab men. It's like saying that form of torture is effective against 'them' but we tough guys can't be softened up that way. But the way torture is designed, it usually plays out the fears of the torturer themselves, not just the tortured."
Some experts on women in the military refuse to see the controversy along gender lines. Carolyn Becraft, a former assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs during the Clinton administration, says, "This is not about women. This is about leadership failure. These women were at the bottom of the totem pole. The political leadership has set the stage and I think the political leadership should be held culpable."
Other female veterans who served in previous wars tend to be more stoic about the focus on women in Abu Ghraib. Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, USAF (Ret.), president of the Women's Memorial Foundation in Arlington, Va., was in the military for over 28 years and during the Vietnam War served as the first female Air Force general. "When you integrate the service and train together, we have to assume these folks had the same training," she says. "They had the same discipline and leadership. There is no need to give it a gendered point of view."
Vaughn takes pride in her service in Vietnam and denies that she had difficulty as a woman in the male-dominated military, but does admit that "we had to have such high standards so that other women can serve. What they've done is disappointing."
The concept of women in the military, especially in combat, is still problematic for Americans, even though women have been serving in combat since 1993. (Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter even suggested that the abuse serves as a reason to keep women out of the military: "In addition to not being able to carry even a medium-sized backpack, women are too vicious," Coulter said, according to today's "Progress Report" from the Center for American Progress.)
It was only last year that the media mythologized Pvt. Jessica Lynch, another hometown girl from West Virginia and the highest-profile female soldier in the Iraq war, as the damsel in distress, rather than a freedom fighter. At first glance, England could be portrayed as the foil to Lynch: Lynch was the captive, England was the captor. Lynch was rescued by her fellow male American troops from apocryphal reports of abusive Iraqis; England perpetrated abuse against Iraqi prisoners with her fellow male troops.
"Here's another little girl from West Virginia," says Depauw. "But you know what? Lynch was not faced with the challenge of disobeying her superiors. It's very rare that humans will stand up to their legal superior because they think the orders are wrong. It's much easier to be a pawn and play your role."
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
About the writer
Cathy Hong is a writer for the Village Voice.
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